of the age. His wealth, his political and social influence, which he preserved in defiance of civil disabilities and ecclesiastical malice, his scholastic attainments, the elegance of his manners when contrasted with Teutonic rudeness; all of these qualities ingratiated him into the favor of the palatines, by whom he was often treated with the consideration deserved by a friend, rather than with the abhorrence due to an outcast. The political organization and legal privileges which the Jews possessed in the early days of the Visigothic monarchy magnified their importance, increased their wealth, and fostered their spirit of exclusiveness. The latter feeling was also strengthened by the policy of separation which it was deemed expedient to adopt, during the Middle Ages, in Christian communities, towards the Hebrew race. For a considerable period of the Gothic dominion, the Jews were confined to a certain quarter of every city and village, over which magistrates of their own blood exercised both civil and criminal functions, unrestricted, save in questions that affected the national faith or where personal injury had been inflicted upon a Christian. The jurisdiction of each provincial assembly was rigidly subordinated to the supreme authority of the central synagogue. The territory beyond the limits of the town--which was often entirely Jewish--was subject to the control of a governor who was responsible only to the sovereign. At one time the Jews controlled the most important landed interests of the kingdom. The prejudice attaching to payments for the use of money did not deter the Hebrew banker from the practice of usury, although the legal rate of thirty-three per cent. certainly offered sufficient inducements to abstain from the violation of the law which he either secretly evaded or openly defied. The activity displayed by the Jews of the Peninsula in every department of science, literature, government, commerce, agriculture, and finance was incessant and indefatigable. No contemporaneous people could boast, in proportion to their numbers, so many men of genius and erudition. Their influence was so extensive that it was acknowledged alike in the hovel of the peasant and in the council chamber of the king. Their powerful individuality survived the cruel impositions which repressed their enterprise, but could not damp their ardor; and the patriotism which attached them to a country in which they were only tolerated as exiles, was sufficient to induce their descendants to heartily aid, by every means in their power, the famous princes and warriors whose capacity and resolution supported, amidst continuous disaster and defeat, the doubtful fortunes of the struggling monarchy of Castile.